


The King You Wanted

by Gin_Juice



Category: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
Genre: Alexander Lemtov deserves a Big Gay Romance, M/M, and also a starring role in a movie, he'd be such a ham it would be amazing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gin_Juice/pseuds/Gin_Juice
Summary: Alexander has been in a bit of a rut since winning Eurovision, but a new place, a new artform, and some new faces might help.---------------------“Ah! I am world-famous singer, and now natural next step is to become big Hollywood star, yes?”“Well, it’s a joint Greek-British production, and the director is Australian, and it’s being filmed in Iceland,” his agent says kindly. “So sure, something like that.”
Relationships: Alexander Lemtov/OMC
Comments: 23
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to write about this movie, but then I couldn't stop thinking about it and here I am. Like a lot of people, I'm not a huge fan of Lars, but he isn't going to be a villain in this story. I love the shit out of Sigrit, and she deserves to get everything she wants, and for some inexplicable reason, what she wants is Lars. Go get him, Sigrit!

Alexander Lemtov is the winner of Eurovision 2020, as a matter of course.

Much of the post-contest chatter is about the inept Icelandic duo who maybe would have won if they weren’t disqualified— what a story, what a voice!—but that is to be expected.

He doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight as much as his stage persona might suggest, anyhow.

He kisses Sigrit goodbye—on the cheeks, both of them, not in the air—and tells Lars he is a lucky man, and then he is off on a tour with Mita for some months.

Every show sells out, except one in Ukraine, and album sales are solid for them both. Downloads are wild. The single version of Lion of Love breaks records in Russia. Alexander brushes up on his Greek, and is congratulated at a party by Paul McCartney, and messages with Kevin Swain every night.

Then it ends, as all good things do.

He plays a few shows alone at smaller venues in Vladivostok and Perm and his native Grozny, to show the fans at home that he is not some bigshot superstar too good for them anymore.

It is time to work on a new album, but it is hard. He writes three songs, and two are okay and one might be great, a real showstopper, but then he leaves it alone for a week and when he comes back to it, he hates it.

Mita is with her family and Sigrit posts photos from her wedding to Lars. She says she is sorry they did not invite him, but it was only a small thing, and when would he have had the time? Kevin takes days to respond to his messages now.

There comes a morning when Alexander sits on his sofa in his home in St. Petersburg— it is restored French rococo, very expensive—and watches TikTok videos for six hours in his pajamas.

He might, he thinks, be stuck in a creative slump.

Then his agent calls and tells him Mita is going to star in a movie, and wants him to play the leading man.

“Ah!” he crows, pleased. “I am world-famous singer, and now natural next step is to become big Hollywood star, yes?”

“Well, it’s a joint Greek-British production, and the director is Australian, and it’s being filmed in Iceland,” she says kindly. “So sure, something like that.”

She tells him she’ll send along more information as she gets it, and then he messages Mita to tell her that if they film a sex scene, he insists they use a double for his part, because the glittery body lotion she favors is bad for his skin.

Next he calls Kevin and leaves a voicemail, and then Sigrit, even though she didn’t invite him to her wedding.

“I am movie star, Sigrit,” he proclaims. “I am making super-sexy spy thriller in your beautiful Iceland. Perfect for me, because I am super sexy, and also very thrilling.”

He pauses. “Mita will be there, too.”

Sigrit gushes about _how exciting!_ and _how really super cool!_ like he’d known she would, and then asks if maybe, if he has the time, if it’s not too much trouble, can they meet up while he’s there?

“But of course,” he says, magnanimous. “You and Lars come visit while I film. Maybe I get you small cameo.”

“Small cameo!” she breathes in awe.

His phone chimes when he ends the call. He thinks maybe it is Kevin, but it is Mita.

It is the peach emoji and a pair of lips.

{}{}{}{}{}

Alexander, as it turns out, is a last-minute replacement for the co-star Mita was supposed to have. It would bruise his ego, only the first actor got an offer to be in a Marvel movie, so he supposes that means there is no shame in it.

It also means that there are only a few weeks left before filming starts, and he must hurry to prepare.

He has a long teleconference with the casting director, and the regular director, and several people from the British studio.

“We’re excited to have you on board,” the casting director says. “We’ve decided to go in a whole new direction with the film— book some other contestants to pop up like Easter Eggs for the diehard fans. Kind of a Eurovision retrospective, but with more mass market appeal because it’ll have a few chase scenes and a big explosion at the finale.”

“Am I to sing?” Alexander asks.

“We’re workshopping it,” the casting director says vaguely.

He books emergency sessions with an acting coach, who he is told has worked with Ekaterina Rednikova, and practices his lines between attempting to write a new song.

“You have a unique quality,” she says finally. “Have you ever heard of _art brut?”_

He has, and he isn’t certain that this is a compliment. But then he is getting on a plane to Iceland, and there is no time to think of it.

Reykjavik is lovely, pastoral and clean. The entire city looks like a postcard. It is also the size of one, but Sigrit assures him over the phone that it is a very hip, happening place.

“So much light and sound!” she says. “The elves stay away, you know. Too much excitement for them.”

Alexander looks down from his hotel’s window to the street. An old man on a bicycle pedals by at a leisurely pace.

“Yes, very overwhelming.”

Mita arrives later that evening, accompanied by her personal assistant and a chisel-jawed Italian who must be ten years her junior.

“Sorry to not be here to greet you, darling,” she says, sweeping him in for kisses and pets to his hair. “We went to see Falljokull icefall. Very beautiful place, incredible for hiking.”

He raises his eyebrows at her. “Hiking? You?”

“I took some selfies and then I waited in the car,” she says, as though it should be obvious.

They sit at the hotel bar for a while, catching up, and no one comes to ask for an autograph or even snaps furtive photos from across the room. The young Italian—his name is Giacomo—suggests they do body shots, and is dismissed by Mita to her room.

When he is gone, Alexander salutes her with his martini. “A toast,” he says, “to your Greco-Roman connection.”

Mita clinks their glasses together. “Have I told you how much I adore your shirt?” she asks sweetly. “I have deaf uncle in Karpathos, it is loud enough that maybe he can hear again.”

They reminisce about their tour, and she plays him a sample of the new song she has written on her phone—sure to be a hot track for next summer, she says—and then it is time for bed.

“You will meet the director in person tomorrow,” she tells him, giving him a hug goodnight. “He is complicated guy—you won’t like him, maybe. These film people are not like us.”

He knows this. He has met film people before, is friends with many of them, and they are… slick. But then, so can he be. The music industry is as cutthroat as any, and he is a player, as they say.

Alexander checks his phone one last time before retiring for the night.

Kevin has still not answered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the cast and crew!

Mita is correct—Alexander does not like the director much.

He meets him face-to-face for the first time at the table read the following day. They are in a conference room at the hotel, and it is full of people and hearty Icelandic breakfast foods and the scent of smoked fish.

Alexander is finishing a bowl of skyr with a dollop of blackberry jam in it and talking to the costume designer about his ideas for the party scene—lavender silk suit, no shirt beneath the jacket, very suave—when he approaches.

“John Farrow,” he introduces himself, pumping Alexander’s hand. “No relation to Mia.”

He said the same thing when they spoke over Zoom. Alexander thought it was a joke then—now, he is less sure.

“I have to say, you look quite different in the flesh to how you do on telly,” he goes on, and he peers close into Alexander’s face for a moment, like a hawk deciding if he wants to eat this particular mouse. “A bit older.”

Publically, Alexander flashes him a dazzling smile and says, “Ah, this is what I think, too! But the ladies all tell me I age like fine wine, and who am I to argue?”

Privately, he thinks _‘_ _МуДак.’_

But then Mita is pulling him away to meet the producer, a handsome Greek patriarch who dotes on her like a favorite grandchild, and there are their co-stars, too—an older British gentleman with a bald head who is to play the main villain, a cadre of young men who are to be his henchmen, and a standoffish beauty who is to be Alexander’s character’s secretary.

“She is rising star in Greece,” Mita confides as she steers him away from her cold stare. “Her role was supposed to be bigger, but there were edits—she is not pleased.”

There are to be other familiar faces later, former Eurovision contestants slotted into bit parts. Johnny John John is going to be a train conductor, and three of the Wonder Four will be restaurant workers in a café scene.

“There are more,” says Mita, and then she sighs. “But they could not get Conchita. We all mourn.”

They begin the read. The Greek producer loves everything Mita does, even when she ad-libs, and the villain is very, very good. John Farrow tells Alexander that his line delivery is too big, and then that his character does not wink so much, and then asks the screenwriters to make a change to the part where he is supposed to say ‘demon spawn,’ because he does not like how Alexander pronounces the word ‘spawn.’

He is a little tired after it is done.

The stunt coordinator, an excitable Iranian in his middle years who has had eight cups of coffee, is preparing to show the demo video he and his team have made. Alexander tells Mita he is going to lie down for a while.

What he actually does is attempt to call Kevin, who does not answer, so he opens Twitter instead to see if anyone interesting has mentioned him.

A fan from Norway has said that he has the ultimate big dick energy. He likes it and closes the app.

Lying there on the hotel bed, he begins to feel restless, and at loose ends, which are not ways he is accustomed to feeling. He also feels alone, which he is more familiar with, so he decides to call Sigrit.

“Alexander Lemtov!” Lars’s voice greets him. “Hello!”

“Hello,” says Alexander. “Who is this?” 

“It is Lars, of course.”

“Lars,” Alexander repeats slowly. “I don’t believe I know any Lars.”

“Lars Erickssong.”

“Perhaps I have wrong number.”

“Sigrit’s husband!”

“Sorry to disturb you.”

There is a silence, followed by a sly “Aaaah!”

“You are big kidder, my friend!” Lars says. “Very funny! You had me tricked.”

“Yes,” Alexander agrees modestly. “After singer and actor, maybe I become comedian. Where is your wife, Lars Erickssong, husband to Sigrit?”

“She cannot come to the phone right now. She is getting sick.”

He sounds delighted by this.

“We are going to have a baby,” he says, and his voice is full of joy and disbelief and pride, that such a thing is happening to them, when it happens to a million other couples every day around the world.

Alexander smiles anyway. “My congratulations,” he says, and he means it. “I will send you small gift, something practical for teeny tiny village in middle of nowhere. Do you prefer Hermes or Chanel?”

Sigrit will make a wonderful mother, he thinks after he has hung up. She is pure and gentle and open, and has a voice that could soothe a volcano. She is surely a wonderful wife, too.

And she could have been a wonderful companion in life, if not in his bed.

It does not do to dwell on things that will never be. He picks his phone back up, and texts one of his backup dancers with instructions to retweet the post about his big dick energy.

{}{}{}{}{}

The night before they begin filming, there is a party for the cast and crew in the function room at one of Reykjavik’s swankiest restaurants.

It is a minimalist place, in the Scandinavian way, with open floors and high ceilings and pale wood, and the bareness of it makes the crystal and gold chandelier in the center really pop.

Alexander thinks he will redecorate one of his homes in this style. Perhaps the house in Brussels—he has never been quite satisfied with it. Not enough marble.

Between charming everyone he speaks to and swooping in to rescue a bartender who Mita’s boy toy is pestering about where he can find ecstasy, he meets their stunt doubles.

They are a married couple, and a strange one. Cosmina is a pretty Romanian in an uninspired black cocktail dress, and she has a certain set to her mouth that gives her away as a perpetual frowner. Michael is an American with an easy smile, impressive biceps, and a head full of Dorito crumbs.

“Our faces are not a match,” Alexander decides, scrutinizing him, “but we have similar build, no?”

“No,” he says.

“No?” Alexander questions.

“I mean, yes. I mean, I was agreeing with you, but you ended on ‘no’ and…” He blinks, his mouth open in mid-thought. “And now I’m _all_ turned around.”

His wife takes his elbow. “Come, Michael. We get drinks,” she orders, her voice flat.

Alexander watches them leave. He is very handsome, his double, as he should be, but it is a shame he lacks Alexander’s sharp mind and quick wit.

Michael leans down so his wife can whisper something in his ear, and he laughs.

…But then, no one can have everything.

Mita glides up to him, looking resplendent in a gauzy, sequined dress with silver detailing.

“Giaco wants to go clubbing,” she says.

“Ah, the night is young, and so is he!” He smiles at her. “But you must be on set at six in the morning, yes? Never fear, dear Mita, I bring you coffee.”

“I am not going,” she informs him. “You are.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. “He is not my stallion to tame. Perhaps you let him run free.”

She smiles back at him. “Someone needs to keep an eye—he gets himself in trouble, my Giaco. And I remember a night when _you_ had some trouble, too. You know, in Barcelona, and there was a party, and a dancer, and a motor bike—“

“I have reconsidered,” he interrupts. “I would be very happy to be horse jockey for you tonight. Overjoyed.”

Mita kisses him on the cheek. “Such a good friend you are, Alexander."

**Author's Note:**

> Love interest will appear next chapter!


End file.
